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Banks in the UK will soon accept photos of cheques through smartphones

Banks in the UK will soon accept photos of cheques through smartphones

Quite late into the game, the UK Treasury has today announced that British banks will soon accept photos of cheques that have been captured via a smartphone, reducing the processing time from six to two days.

This is something that has been accepted in the US by JP Morgan Chase since 2010, who allow customers to use the Chase mobile app to snap a picture of their cheque and get it processed straight away, but despite its ease of use, the UK has opposed this addition for some time, but have this week decided to make the technology legal, passing a new law called Check 21, making electronic cheques captured in methods like this legal.

Barclays will be the first to use the new programme, launching a pilot programme in April 2014 that will accept and process captures of cheques via smartphones in late 2014.